Swiss UN rapporteur urges Washington to release Columbia University student
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, Nicolas Levrat, and eight other legal experts, have called on the United States to release Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil, who has been arrested and threatened with deportation from the US for his role in campus protests against Israel last year.
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Washington must stop harassing pro-Palestinian students, they say.
The independent experts, who do not speak on behalf of the UN, said in Geneva on Thursday that the arrest, detention and threatened deportation of Khalil is “dangerous”. The Palestinian student activist was arrested on March 8 without the charges against him being clarified.
He had previously been the victim of an online smear campaign calling for his expulsion. The arrest came amid a wider campaign of harassment and threats against students defending Palestinian rights and calling for divestment from companies linked to the war in Gaza.
The White House warned that it could be the first in a wave of cases.
‘Using expulsion as weapon’
“We are alarmed by the fact that the American authorities are openly using expulsion as a weapon,” say the nine UN experts.
They denounce a violation of fundamental freedoms that could have an effect beyond the Palestinian question on all migrants. They had already protested in a letter to the American authorities against the bans and assaults on pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
They reject the “excuse” given by the latter of a response against terrorism and anti-Semitism. These demonstrations for the human rights of Palestinians are “protected by international law”, they insist.
The independent experts are asking the authorities, with whom they are in direct contact, to honour their international obligations, they add.
Translated from French with DeepL/sb
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